Opinion Contributor

Why Anthony Weiner sinks while Eliot Spitzer soars

With scandals, the gap between revelation and redemption is vanishing, the author says. | AP Photos

Sanford easily won his race in May, and the latest polls show Spitzer up 12 points over his closet rival. All of this raises the question: Are these guys really the best we can do?

It is reasonable to assume that Sanford, Spitzer, and Weiner were emboldened to run for office in part because, in the eyes of many voters in our hyperpolarized times, political ideology trumps personal integrity.

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As one voter told BuzzFeedabout Sanford, “I wouldn’t necessarily want him marrying my daughter or my sister. But his constitutional voting record is more than enough to carry the day versus the absolutely unconstitutional voting positions of his opponent. It’s no contest. It’s good versus evil.” Translation: The times are just too perilous to care that much about a candidate’s character.

But I submit that the opposite is true. We live in a time when public disillusionment with government is at an all-time high, and when twice as many Americans believe the country is on the “wrong track” as believe it’s on the “right track.” It shouldn’t be too much to ask that our leaders be not only competent but also moral, and that we give them authority over legislative bodies only after they’ve mastered control over their own.

Many voters are willing to tolerate bad behavior in their politicians in the belief that he or she alone can solve the country’s (or city’s) problems. Ironically, however, a significant portion of the problems we face, the very problems for which politicians are elected to solve, are related to the breakdown of the family and the destruction of reliable standards of right and wrong.

Which brings us back to Anthony Weiner.

The would-be mayor was ahead in the early stages of his Democratic primary, demonstrating that voters were willing to give him a second chance. But he quickly slid from first to fourth after revelations that he continued his lewd behavior after the birth of his child and after he assured the media that he had recommitted to his marriage.

Just as revealing, a new Siena College pollfinds that 68 percent of New Yorkers consider the national attention placed on the city because of the Weiner and Spitzer campaigns “embarrassing” and that 80 percent of New York voters view Weiner unfavorably — an all-time low among politicians.

To answer my initial question, the public may be more willing than ever to forgive politicians embroiled in sex scandals. But clearly, there is a limit to the amount of shamelessness voters will tolerate, especially when they end up being treated no better than a jilted spouse.

Former presidential candidate Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families.